Sleep apnea tied to heart risk after angioplasty

By Kathryn Doyle

(Reuters Health) - After coronary angioplasty, untreated sleep-breathing problems like snoring or apnea may raise the risk of heart attack or stroke, researchers say.

Patients in Japan who had angioplasty were more than twice as likely to have heart failure, a heart attack or a stroke in the next five years if they also had sleep-breathing problems.

Intermittent low-oxygen periods during sleep may increase stress or activate inflammatory responses that damage the heart, said lead author Dr. Toru Mazaki of the department of cardiology at Kobe Central Hospital in Japan.

Sleep-disordered breathing, especially apnea, has been tied to increased risk of heart disease and stroke in past research.

To see if it affects risk for people after angioplasty, the researchers monitored 241 post-angioplasty patients over one night of sleep, about a week after the cardiac procedure.

Just over half were found to have sleep-disordered breathing, according to the report online June 15 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

During a mean follow-up of 5.5 years, 10 people with sleep disordered breathing and three without sleep breathing issues died. Major adverse events like heart attack and stroke occurred in more than 20% of those with sleep breathing issues, compared to 8% of those without breathing problems.

"There is limited awareness of sleep-disordered breathing among doctors who care for patients with heart attack," Mazaki told Reuters Health by email. "Doctors and patients should consider sleep studies following heart attack and angioplasty to rule out sleep-disordered breathing or take necessary precautions to restore healthy breathing during sleep."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1f4U4k9

J Am Heart Assoc 2016.

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